FM16 - The Sky Bet Football League thread

[PleasedToMichu]

Wondered where you had got to Jogo! Hopefully you can jump back in FM life soon!

Well it seems my tactics session has done the trick. It the 4 games since it, we've drawn 1-1 away to Ipswich, beaten Derby 2-1 at home, demolished Middlesbrough 3-0 at home in one of the most complete performances i've seen for a while and headed to Stoke in the League Cup and came away with a unexpected win on penalties, after a 0-0 in which we went completely toe to toe with our Premiership opposition.

One thing i did tactically was alter Louis Reed's playing role, and he's been different gravy in the listed 4 games. Only 19 and he's already one of our key players. Just tied him down to a 4 year deal.

[robbie_start]

Just read through this from page 1, haven't been able to get into FM 2016 to be honest but after reading this thread I am going to give it one last shot, not sure who I am going to be yet but it will be either League One or Two as I never really manage lower league teams. Will update once I have decided who to go with!

[robbie_start]

Decided on Wigan Athletic, strong squad for the standard and hopefully be able to get them promoted! After reading through the pages I noticed Wigan are a popular choice, what formation/tactics did people go for? Thanks

[PleasedToMichu]

Nice to have another one in the thread! 

Wigan seem a good challenge. They actually took 4 points off me in my promotion season from League 1 the swines! What are the board expectations? Promotion?

[kozmik]

All right, finally, finally ready to kick off the new season! Spent a few days away from the computer and then had a long and grueling transfer summer. I had a debate with myself with how I'm going to proceed - a low risk, long term option that's probably a realistic one, or then go all FM with a high risk short term approach. Obviously went with the full FM option.

So, we had an insane amount of traffic once again. Had to sell a few key players yet again, but (so far, at least) managed to hold on to my favorite one, Ben Garratt. I had him sign a new contract straight after the previous season which warded off most of the budding interest in him. Chelsea are still interested and have made a couple of bids but so far he hasn't kicked up a fuss despite me being adamant on only selling him for his release clause of 9 million.

Anyway, I sold and released ten first team players (13 if you include finished loans) and have so far signed 13, two of those are basically random freebie punts rather than properly scouted, namely Ricci and La Gumina.

Everyone usually loves flashy attacking players, but I'm most excited about these two guys:

As of now I don't have a dedicated cover for the DM position, and I'm considering signing someone for that. Probably a freebie as there are few decent looking ones available. I will most likely be signing one midfielder to complete my first choice midfield triangle with Cofie and Pereira. I have two options, one is a good option that will strengthen the team and be a great help in our push for promotion, although he's annoyingly expensive. He's the more likely option. The second, and the far more unlikely option, is a freebie and a wholly different matter... I don't think I'll be able to pull it off, but if I do, it will probably the most amazing coup in my personal FM history. A real all bets are off -type signing. I'll reveal who these guys are when the deal's done. Fingers crossed we get the second one!

Almost forgot... We obviously signed Joseph Colley on another season long loan from Chelsea, his third in a row. Only as a rotation option this time around. Unfortunately we have to pay his wages this year, a whopping 925 pounds per week... He's already played 59 league games with us, and even scored three goals. Almost a club legend by now. Also just realized... He's only been booked four times in all these games. Pretty impressive for a young CB.

[PleasedToMichu]

Another good summer! I'm the same, no matter what i say to myself before a window, i always end up signing at least 5 players

I second your comment about midfielders over flashy attackers. At Sheff Utd i'm looking to build a team around a solid midfield trio. Think i'm 8 games in to the season and sitting in 8th, team is playing pretty well, putting in some good performances, highlight so far being a 2-0 win at Bolton who before the game were unbeaten without conceding a goal at home. Also got a 4th round tie at home to Man United to look forward to in the league cup.

As per standard, haven't been able to play in the last few days despite me itching to.

[robbie_start]

Yep board want me to win League One.

Started off ok'ish, pre season I played 5 games and drew them all 0-0!! First game of the season I beat Coventry away 3-2, Armstrong for them was brilliant so I am currently scouting him, got knocked out of the Carling Cup by Notts County 2-1, and just battered Doncaster at home for 88 minutes for Richard Chaplow to score right at the death!

I have had to bring in 2 strikers as a couple of mine got injuries, have brought in Luke Moore from Toronto and also Tokelo Rantie from Bournemouth both on 3 month loans.

Will update again at Christmas, hopefully be leading the pack by then!

[kozmik]

11 hours ago, PleasedToMichu said:

Another good summer! I'm the same, no matter what i say to myself before a window, i always end up signing at least 5 players

I second your comment about midfielders over flashy attackers. At Sheff Utd i'm looking to build a team around a solid midfield trio. Think i'm 8 games in to the season and sitting in 8th, team is playing pretty well, putting in some good performances, highlight so far being a 2-0 win at Bolton who before the game were unbeaten without conceding a goal at home. Also got a 4th round tie at home to Man United to look forward to in the league cup.

As per standard, haven't been able to play in the last few days despite me itching to.

It was indeed a good summer, and I'm pretty happy with my squad now. We've started pretty well, too, had a difficult set of early league fixtures facing Derby, Fulham (relegated last season), Cardiff, Luton (promoted last season) and Sheffield United. Two wins and three draws is decent, only one genuinely disappointing result, 1-1 vs Sheffield at home.

I've now stopped on the final day of the transfer window, as I can't decide what to do regarding the one signing I spoke about. Like I explained, I have two options. The first one is our former star player Tom Lawrence, who's been transfer listed by Bristol. I'd absolutely love to have him back, but I'm a little bit wary of his asking price, which is 1,4 million. It's 400k lower than what we sold him for but it's a bit more steep than I would like. If he helps us to get promoted he'll be worth that easily, but it's going to be difficult, with Joel Pohjanpalo scoring hat tricks for Burnley and Fulham having Jese Rodriguez (the Real Madrid guy) on the bench. The other option? None other than Angel Correa, whom I signed for Derby, went on to become player of the year two seasons in a row before eventually moving to Man City for tens of millions. He left Atletico in the summer, and is still without a club. There's been some interest in him from the likes of St. Etienne, but currently there's none. So far he isn't interested in moving to us, but I'd say that if he stays without a club for maybe a moth or so, things could be different.

Then the question is, do I dare to risk it? I do have a full squad at the moment, so basically I can cope without signing either of them. But the first choice CM/A is probably our weakest position right now, another is AML - both players can play in both positions, likely at a higher level than our other options (or rather definitely, in Correa's case), so signing either of them would be very good for us. I definitely can't sign both, Lawrence is expensive and I can imagine that Correa's eventual wage demand would be around 20-30k per week, comfortably highest in the squad. But waiting it out for Correa is a risk, because it's entirely possible that we won't be good enough for him at any point. I can't see Lawrence taken off the transfer list any time soon as he's been listed by the club rather than because of issues with first team football etc. So it would probably be possible to sign him in January - but how many potential points will we have missed out by that point?

What a problem.

[PleasedToMichu]

5 hours ago, robbie_start said:

Yep board want me to win League One.

Started off ok'ish, pre season I played 5 games and drew them all 0-0!! First game of the season I beat Coventry away 3-2, Armstrong for them was brilliant so I am currently scouting him, got knocked out of the Carling Cup by Notts County 2-1, and just battered Doncaster at home for 88 minutes for Richard Chaplow to score right at the death!

I have had to bring in 2 strikers as a couple of mine got injuries, have brought in Luke Moore from Toronto and also Tokelo Rantie from Bournemouth both on 3 month loans.

Will update again at Christmas, hopefully be leading the pack by then!

It's just going to be a matter of getting the team to jel then hopefully you'll begin to see some solid performances being turned into wins rather than draws. Board wanting you to win the league is a big ask, hopefully they won't be complete idiots and sack you if you only go up via the playoffs or something  

@kozmik I think if you can afford to, wait for Correa. I think if you keep knocking at his door and he stays without a club, he will eventually come to the table. Might be some hard negotiations after that too, but whereas I feel Lawrence might be a man just coming in to be a stop gap, Correa could be a man to really take you to the next level.

To use own personally experience, my CB Mazuch refused to speak to me for months when I was in League 1 while he was a free agent. Eventually he would but wanted stupid wages. So I just kept going back into negotiations with him every Wednesday. Eventually after a few weeks I could get him down enough to actually strike a deal. (And he's going from strength to strength this season, back up to being worth £4 mill and has the highest average rating on the team. He's in the 7.8-8.2 range pretty much every game so far)

[Jogo Bonito]

Nice to see you guys still enjoying the football league. Keep going and you may even tempt me to allocate some moments to a new adventure!

[kozmik]

18 minutes ago, PleasedToMichu said:

It's just going to be a matter of getting the team to jel then hopefully you'll begin to see some solid performances being turned into wins rather than draws. Board wanting you to win the league is a big ask, hopefully they won't be complete idiots and sack you if you only go up via the playoffs or something  

@kozmik I think if you can afford to, wait for Correa. I think if you keep knocking at his door and he stays without a club, he will eventually come to the table. Might be some hard negotiations after that too, but whereas I feel Lawrence might be a man just coming in to be a stop gap, Correa could be a man to really take you to the next level.

To use own personally experience, my CB Mazuch refused to speak to me for months when I was in League 1 while he was a free agent. Eventually he would but wanted stupid wages. So I just kept going back into negotiations with him every Wednesday. Eventually after a few weeks I could get him down enough to actually strike a deal. (And he's going from strength to strength this season, back up to being worth £4 mill and has the highest average rating on the team. He's in the 7.8-8.2 range pretty much every game so far)

Agreed, in fact I already came to the same conclusion. My current first choice CM/A is Kian Flanagan, on loan from Palace for the second year in a row, and he's actually pretty similar to Lawrence, just has a poorer personality (balanced vs. fairly ambitious, not sure how much that matters though), lower consistency (fairly inconsistent vs. fairly consistent, didn't stop him from being one of our best performers last season) and probably slightly lower CA overall, with a few points less here and there, such as long shots, vision and anticipation. Besides, Flanagan has been injured so far but will be fit soon, who knows how much him being there will help, even though Ricci has been a pretty impressive backup with a 7,12 average rating.

I'll see what happens with Correa, if needs be I'll go back in for Lawrence in January. Maybe the asking price will have even dropped a bit by then. You're absolutely right about Correa taking us to the next level, be it by his performances or the transfer fee we could/would eventually get, he'll be an immense help. Unless he gets a bad injury, as he's a tad injury prone in this save...

That story about Mazuch is great, your perseverance obviously paid off.

[kozmik]

Well...

Notice he's pleased to join a successful club? Although he's not completely wrong...

Went 16 league games unbeaten, including last three of the previous season, before losing to Sunderland at home after a woeful first half performance. So far Matteo Ricci, one of the freebie punts, has been the surprise of the season with very good performances. Paul Dummett on the other hand seems to be turning out to be a complete and utter waste of money. He's managed a 7.0 rating once - in the league cup. At home. Vs. Barnet. What an awful piece of business.

Here, on the other hand, is the man that I love:

While Dummett has been poor in all formations and systems, this guy is an absolute beast in my aggressive press system. He can catch almost any striker in the league. Such a great player, even though he has the lowest star rating of all my CB's.

Edit: I got the last picture link messed up, let's see if it works now...

[PleasedToMichu]

Hurrah the waiting paid off then! How long did you have to wait before he started to come around to negotiations? 

[kozmik]

In late September I could've made a first offer, but didn't bother as I was sure he'd demand too much. Early October he demanded about 32k per week, late October it had dropped to 24k, that's when I negotiated and got him signed. Could've probably gotten his demands down even more but I didn't want to risk it. As soon as I had offered him a contract major interest from several clubs appeared out of nowhere - Augsburg was one of them, can't remember the rest. But none of them made an offer, thankfully. Had a decent start as well, obviously have to ease him in as he's not match fit but he's scored two great goals already. Anyway, here's his contract, joint highest earner with Mbappe:

There's another former wonderkid available on a free without any interest... I'd love to sign him as well but as it stands I can't afford him.

Maybe we'll sell a player or two in January, if he's still available then I'll go for it.

[kozmik]

Oo, a side job! That pays about triple what I earn at Carlisle...

Didn't even apply for it, don't remember any rumors either, although I did see a news item that the previous guy had left. They just offered it to me out of the blue. Will be interesting, I haven't actually been able to make any international side work in FM16.

Edit: Bale has retired from internationals.

[PleasedToMichu]

International manager as well then! Also hoping i get one down the line somewhere.

After 12 games of the season, we have just stunned everyone and lie top of the league. Just banging in the goals left right and centre, on a cracking winning streak at the moment. I know it won't last, but going to enjoy looking at the league for now!

[kozmik]

24 minutes ago, PleasedToMichu said:

International manager as well then! Also hoping i get one down the line somewhere.

After 12 games of the season, we have just stunned everyone and lie top of the league. Just banging in the goals left right and centre, on a cracking winning streak at the moment. I know it won't last, but going to enjoy looking at the league for now!

Good going! Love going on a hot streak, absolutely hate it when it's over. We've gone a bit off the boil, still managed four wins and two draws in the last eight games. Next up is league cup quarters at Chelsea. Hopefully the stadium's packed, and hopefully we won't get too badly battered.

Mbappe is wanted by Stoke, so I imagine he'll be off in January. He's got a 10,5 mill release clause and will be due 5% of profit, signed him for 2,8 mill so we'll get a decent amount of cash. Hopefully Stoke won't try to lowball us, the clause is entirely fair for a player of his caliber.

[PleasedToMichu]

Urgh, both Cummings and Campbell get injured in the same league game and i've done the clever thing of loaning out all my other senior strikers, so it looks like i'm either playing a 20 year old nobody up top, or someone out of position, for the next two games. And they happen to be against Man Utd in the Cup, followed by 2nd place Crystal Palace away. Great.

[PleasedToMichu]

Never seen anything like the games we got in the lead up to/over the Christmas period. 4 games, ALL vs teams in the top 8, ALL away. Unreal. 

26 games in, lying in 6th. Still been a cracking season but man, injuries and dubious game scheduling is killing us. 0 wins in 4 games and only 2 wins out of the last 7. Tough. 

Cummings has 19 for the league season, 20 in all comps, and continues to bang them in. He literally just then ended a 5 game goal drought too, so shows how well he was going up to then. Had something like 18 in 21 league games. The trio of him, Lingaard and Che Adams has been tormenting a lot of defences. All 3 are turning into very, very good players. 

[kozmik]

22 hours ago, PleasedToMichu said:

Never seen anything like the games we got in the lead up to/over the Christmas period. 4 games, ALL vs teams in the top 8, ALL away. Unreal. 

26 games in, lying in 6th. Still been a cracking season but man, injuries and dubious game scheduling is killing us. 0 wins in 4 games and only 2 wins out of the last 7. Tough. 

Cummings has 19 for the league season, 20 in all comps, and continues to bang them in. He literally just then ended a 5 game goal drought too, so shows how well he was going up to then. Had something like 18 in 21 league games. The trio of him, Lingaard and Che Adams has been tormenting a lot of defences. All 3 are turning into very, very good players. 

That is a tough run. But in the end, you have to play every game regardless, just focus on keeping morale as high as possible. In my second prem season with Derby we faced both Manchester clubs, Chelsea, Spurs and Liverpool (eventual champions) in our first six games. After those six games we were 19th with 3 points. Still managed to finish fourth that season.

The January transfer window is now closed. Here's the news:

Additionally, we managed to get rid of Paul Dummett! And we even made a profit! Loaned Carter-Vickers from Spurs as his replacement. Because it looks like we have a good chance of promotion I didn't want to buy a championship level CB, rather just loan one. Replaced Garratt with Francesco Bardi for 750k. For whatever reason Stoke's interest never materialized so I'll get to keep Mbappe at least until the end of the season! And if we do get promoted I imagine he'll be happy to stay unless a really big club comes in for him.

[PleasedToMichu]

Yeah true, and actually it means when we play all those teams again, in the last stretch of the season when things could be very tight and every point precious, i'll be playing them all at home.  

Cracking season so far, looking good at the top, 11 points is a tidy gap!! Looks like it could be Premiership football for you next year. 

[kozmik]

53 minutes ago, PleasedToMichu said:

Yeah true, and actually it means when we play all those teams again, in the last stretch of the season when things could be very tight and every point precious, i'll be playing them all at home.  

Cracking season so far, looking good at the top, 11 points is a tidy gap!! Looks like it could be Premiership football for you next year. 

Not only that, if you lose to them first time around you'll be able to use the revenge team talk next time.

Our form has been a bit crap recently. We're still top, but only 5 points above Forest in 2nd, 8 above Leicester in 3rd and 10 points above Wednesday at 4th with a game in hand. Ten games still to play. No need to panic yet, but our form definitely needs to improve. After a run of seven straight wins in the league we now have 4 draws and 2 defeats in the last nine.

[kozmik]

We're very, very close now.

Playoff spot is secured, a win and a draw away from mathematically securing automatic promotion, one win should be enough thanks to our superior GD. Two wins to seal the title. It's really quite amazing we're still in this position, considering we went through a 12-game period like this:

The Preston match had me close to tears They had a player sent off after 8 minutes, we create chance after chance after chance but can't score more than one and they score from their only good chance of the game. The Sheffield United game was another, we had about 15 shots, close to ten on target, they had four shots and two on goal, with Ceppitelli scoring their third with one of the greatest own goals ever seen, a brilliant header to the far corner from 10 yards out.

Now we're sitting on three straight wins, hopefully we can keep this form up to win the biggest trophy in the club's history and the first one since the JPT in 2011.

[PleasedToMichu]

So close now, what are you opposition like for the last few games? Either way you should hopefully be able to get over the finish line from here. Amazing how teams run hot and cold isn't it. We've pretty much done the exact same, do something like 5 wins in a run, followed by 4 losses and a draw, then go back to winning 3 on the bounce. Consistency lads come on!

Only one bit of business was done by us in the Jan window and that was picking up Milos Veljkovic on loan from Spurs. As they are a senior affiliate of ours, it obviously costs me nothing in fees or wages for the whole loan, so was a no brainer for a bit of defensive cover. Looks a tidy player too, wouldn't mind getting him permanently if the fee was right.

31 games in and currently lying in 5th. It's so tight though it will be an unreal achievement to hold on to playoff position.  Us in 5th and the team is 10th is separated by like 5 points, so the playoff race is so tight. Need to go on a cracking run of wins to keep this up. Who knows though, we've come this far!

[kozmik]

23 minutes ago, PleasedToMichu said:

So close now, what are you opposition like for the last few games? Either way you should hopefully be able to get over the finish line from here. Amazing how teams run hot and cold isn't it. We've pretty much done the exact same, do something like 5 wins in a run, followed by 4 losses and a draw, then go back to winning 3 on the bounce. Consistency lads come on!

Only one bit of business was done by us in the Jan window and that was picking up Milos Veljkovic on loan from Spurs. As they are a senior affiliate of ours, it obviously costs me nothing in fees or wages for the whole loan, so was a no brainer for a bit of defensive cover. Looks a tidy player too, wouldn't mind getting him permanently if the fee was right.

31 games in and currently lying in 5th. It's so tight though it will be an unreal achievement to hold on to playoff position.  Us in 5th and the team is 10th is separated by like 5 points, so the playoff race is so tight. Need to go on a cracking run of wins to keep this up. Who knows though, we've come this far!

The strange this is that we were ridiculously consistent until that period. We'd only lost three and drawn six in 27 games. And in those 12 games we almost doubled our draws and more than doubled our defeats. We had a slight blip earlier when we lost and drew a couple inside about 6-7 games, but other than that we were flying most of the time.

Now we have 3 games left, Barnsley away, Millwall at home and Forest away. Easy enough - in theory (apart from Forest). We lost to Birmingham at home, 2-1 with a late goal despite again dominating throughout the match, a win that secured championship football next season for them. Pushed too hard for a winner and then got punished on the break. Thankfully both Forest and Leeds lost so automatic promotion is all but secured. Four points ahead of Wednesday now, so will need six points to secure the title.

Speaking of senior affiliates, I don't think I mentioned that we've been United's feeder team this season? Haven't loaned a single player off them though, as not a single one available would get near my team. I think I had that Veljkovic guy at Derby once, was pretty good iirc.

Good luck in your promotion chase!

[PleasedToMichu]

Cheers, made the mistake of buying Prison Architect last night on a steam midweek madness sale so i might be heavily delayed finishing the season

[kozmik]

Clinched it at home with a 2-1 win against Millwall. And with an attendance of just 9,2k I'm not sure, but I'd think that if Carlisle in real life had a great chance of winning the championship at home, the stadium would be pretty much packed even if it was against a relegation-threatened team. Average attendance has gone up to 11k, which is pleasing. Hopefully it'll be closer to capacity next year.

Now we've just one game left. Then it's time to start looking at transfers.

Looks decent enough, although that wage budget is really low. Will have to adjust to get it higher. I do think I have five starters already (departures notwithstanding), Bardi, Cofie, Pereira, Mbappe and Correa will (surprise arrivals notwithstanding) be first choice next season. A first choice striker and two cb's are top priority.

This was pretty interesting, some wage budget comparison. Top three and two teams around us. 20th in the division

[PleasedToMichu]

Brilliant stuff fella!! Hopefully you can work wonders with the money you've been given. Like you said you've got a base of a team already, just need to improve on it for Premiership life!

I would have played tonight, but i definately didn't just play Prison Architect for 5 hours straight...

[kozmik]

20 hours ago, PleasedToMichu said:

Brilliant stuff fella!! Hopefully you can work wonders with the money you've been given. Like you said you've got a base of a team already, just need to improve on it for Premiership life!

I would have played tonight, but i definately didn't just play Prison Architect for 5 hours straight...

Thanks. We've pretty much finished our business already. I'm still on the lookout for a striker, but as it stands we're done. Season is still about a month away.

So, for the first time we've actually paid more in fees than we received - about 19 million spent and 5 received. I'm fairly happy with our business. A sort of "sign all the former wonderkids" -type summer. I did look at a few strikers, but they all were either not interested, not worth the fee or picked another club ahead of us. I'm keeping an eye on Johannes Eggestein. He's at Wolfsburg, unhappy but not transfer listed. They have five strikers on the books (three of them unhappy) so I'd expect them to sell one before the season starts, but I suppose you never know with the AI.

These are the most interesting signings so far:

[PleasedToMichu]

Curro on a free looks like the deal of the summer!

[kozmik]

17 hours ago, PleasedToMichu said:

Curro on a free looks like the deal of the summer!

If only...

Free transfer after his Liverpool contract expired.

I've just realized I need to start looking at some decent youngsters. Keeping in line with our upward trajectory we should be looking at European football in a few years, and there isn't a single first-team worthy Carlisle-produced player in existence! I mean that literally, not a single one is fit to play premier league football. Patrick Brough is probably closest to that level and I sold him a year ago as I thought he wasn't good enough for a title challenging team in the championship.

[kozmik]

As one might have expected, our transfer business wasn't over... We've sold both our right backs People were suddenly queuing up for Fiamozzi (he was on his last contract year), ended up selling him for 2+ million and then replacing him with a better player in Danny Da Costa. All of a sudden we got a bid for Reece Hall-Johnson. And out he went, because I had a bit earlier signed this guy on a free:

I figured that without European football Da Costa will be playing almost all games, so it's not really a problem if the backup isn't that good. Better for Kucera to get some first team action as well. Although in the end I'm not sure how much first team action he will get, as just now I signed this guy from Bilbao for 1,4 million:

He was transfer listed, unhappy with lack of first team football. I had looked at him earlier and gotten high recommendations from my scouts so at 1,4 million it was a no-brainer. In his first season I'll probably use him as a right back mainly, I don't really have enough room in midfield and his passing isn't really good enough for midfield yet anyway. So Kucera will have to settle for playing with the reserves for now...

[pocketspace]

On 8/31/2016 at 16:34, kozmik said:

First of all well done on your achievement. I've got an off-topic question, how do I find these wage budget comparison?  I can't seem to find it.

[kozmik]

34 minutes ago, pocketspace said:

First of all well done on your achievement. I've got an off-topic question, how do I find these wage budget comparison?  I can't seem to find it.

Thanks!

From the league screen, stats->team detailed, salary per annum is at the bottom of the list on the left.

[pocketspace]

I believe that I can contribute to this thread by writing up my career so far with Sheffield Wednesday. It's been a nice journey so far to be fair and we've managed to win promotion in the first season, only a very bad run of 10 games without a win towards the end of the season denying us the first place.

 

 

Didn't do much business in the first season transfer market, just brought some players here and there, mostly on loan.

 

 

Right now I am in the second season, January 2017 and we're on 9th place, well above the relegation zone. I am very pleased with this to be honest, as I am quite close to the European places and I hope I can continue to have good results in the league.

 

 

At the beginning of the second season we were given 11m and I was worried of what was to come as I felt that our squad wasn't good enough to stay up in the league. I had to rely on a club DNA and recruit the better players available that were fitting the criteria so I guess it worked so far. In December 2016, the board injected 54m in the transfer budget so I am looking to strengthen the squad.

 

[kozmik]

Hi, @pocketspace, nice to see a new face in the thread! 9th in the first premier league season is great going, keep it up. How's Meekings doing for you? I had him for the season we got promoted but didn't impress too much, got a couple of straight reds too.

It seems to be a trend that when you're promoted you don't really get that much money, but when the TV money starts flowing in as the season progresses you get tens of millions. Happened to me when I was promoted with Derby, and I seem to remember others saying the same in this thread. Hopefully happens to me with Carlisle as well, I could do with a player or four.

I really need to share this:

18 shots, 0 on target Unfortunately this was just the league cup but still, great fun. They played a heavily rotated side with probably only 3-4 first XI players, but, to be fair, so did we.

[pocketspace]

@kozmik - I've always found Championship and to some lesser extend League One sides very entertaining because you can build them up the way you want without much pressure. I've scouted Meekings and in the end I had to go with him because he was very cheap and all the initial CB targets have gone to other clubs but for 1.2m he is doing a good job, a couple of clumsy performances but he's been solid. According to the Transfer Confidence tab, he's got 90% confidence.

 

[PleasedToMichu]

Nice to have another face in the forum @pocketspace! Cracking going with Sheff Wed too, my arch rivals in current FM terms.  On holiday for a week in baking Spain now so no FM for a bit!

[Jogo Bonito]

I've just set up a new game with OGC Nice, and enjoying it after some time away. Might have another bash in England before the new version of the game, and have a few ideas in mind - but not that many appealing teams in League 2 at the moment. Ironically I have a couple of really strong contenders for L2 in FM17 so don't think the absence will be long. I would say however, that it's unlikely I will have time to create any guides for the new version, so it's open to the floor for anyone who thinks they can do a good job with it

[kozmik]

Can't remember getting so close to a perfect game against roughly equal opposition in this year's FM. Their back four had an average rating of about 5. Of course they just had to score with their only shot on target.

January signings:

I had looked at Coelho in the summer but decided against it, went for him now as Bardi is injured for a couple of months and my backup keeper is woeful. Annoying now as he would have been 18 in the summer so would have become homegrown, turned 19 somewhere in between. Sold Chester, who was a complete flop, backup DM Morsy who was pretty much made redundant by the signing of Larrainzar in late August and Jerry Mbakogu who only had half a year on his contract. That was indeed the deal that prompted me to sign Valencia, am pretty happy with the outcome. After watching my LB's struggle a bit for half a year I also signed Federico Dimarco from Inter, loan with an option to buy. Sold Mattiello to make room for him. Also signed a German-Turkish CB/RB to replace Chester. Most importantly, my key players Pereira, Mbappe and Correa are still here, despite interest on Pereira and Mbappe from West Ham and Liverpool respectively. Mbappe and Correa are currently valued at 20-25 million and their buyout clauses for champions league clubs are at 30-40 million, so will have to try and get them to sign new contracts at the end of the season, because for that money one or both will surely be off.

[kozmik]

I'm shocked, proud and slightly annoyed by this. It's at least a year too early... I always like a big squad (2 players per position) when I'm in Europe and as we still have zero home grown players and zero u21 players who have been with us for two years squad building will be very difficult for next season. I'm considering signing Swindon goalkeeper Mark Gillespie as my backup keeper as he's Carlisle grown and I never play my backup keeper anyway. He's currently worth 89k But that would mean I could assemble a 22 man squad which is exactly 2 per position. Hopefully I can find some decent and not too expensive youngsters to provide some emergency backup.

At least I got a decent amount of money to spend:

[PleasedToMichu]

Great work fella!! Will be intriguing to see how you get on in Europe this year. A little European cup run will be great for the club.

Got back from holiday early Sunday morning and spent Sunday day recovering so not much time to play. Played 2 matches since i've been back. First was away to Brighton, had 61% possession, 3 times as many shots. Lost 3-0. Naturally.

Next up was Barnsley at home, the absolute bane of my life from League 1. They are slap bang bottom and headed back to league 1 bar a miracle. So naturally i knew this was going to be a nightmare of a match and so it was. 3-1 up at half time and i still wasn't happy, i knew Barnsley never lie down and let me win. 65 minutes gone and it was 3-3 and we were holding on. Cue Che Adams rising up to meet a cross in the 92nd minute to win me the game 4-3. Cue me dancing in my room, much to the puzzlement on my girlfriend.

With that win we remain 5th after 34 games. But it's so tight. After losing 3-0 to Brighton we went down to 9th, with the Barnsley win we went back up to 5th. Had the Barnsley game ended 3-3 we would have been 8th. It's that tight.

Got all the big teams coming up now (and Mazuch just got a 3 match suspension for 15 yellow cards) too so i'm not too hopeful of remaining in the playoffs, but happy with the season no matter what happens. Already got the core of team, Lingaard, Cummings, Adams, Reed, Da Silva, Mazuch and Coates, tied down to long term deals. Get some decent deals done in the summer and i've got a real good looking side on hands heading into the next season.

Will be double happy if Barnsley get relegated too 

[kozmik]

In FM there are very few better feelings than beating your bogey team, seeing your bogey team get relegated is one of them. Fulham away is a fixture that still makes me shudder a bit just because I never won that fixture in FM14 until my last one before moving on to 15. And for me it even extends to real life: I've been struggling against Norwich a bit and was happy to see them get relegated last season.

I'm still trying to navigate my way through the summer, but I can already say that it will be a summer of tremendous amounts of money and a ridiculous amount of player traffic. And another excellent freebie. I'll leave it at that for now...

[PleasedToMichu]

With 40 games gone we are 8th, one point off the playoffs. Sound good? Well imagine how good it could be; we haven't won in 5 games. 3 defeats and 2 draws. We could be out of sight in the playoff positions by now if we had had a good run of form here, not a terrible one.

This playoff race is insane. 6th place has 63 points. 13th place has 59. Mental. And then 3rd place only has 66. Second play has 77 now so out of sight, but a few games ago they were only 4 points ahead of me. 

[kozmik]

First... Sorry for the long post.

We're about to kick off the new season at home against newly promoted Wolves. Like I said earlier there's been a ridiculous amount of traffic and as a result our tactical familiarity is a complete disaster, but at least I'm pretty happy with the team now. CB's is the only position where I feel we didn't get enough quality in which is mainly down to the demands of my high line system. In the end I had to compromise by signing an 18-year old who doesn't really meet the requirements but I've been scouting him several times during the past year and he looks set to be a star. Anyway, here's my new backup keeper ():

Had to sign him just to get that one Carlisle-grown player into the squad. Then, the free signing I mentioned:

He spent a year without a club I actually approached him early last season for the first time but he wouldn't even talk to me. Tried again later that season (around jan-feb I think) and he demanded 100k+ per week. He's injury prone which maybe explains the lack of interest. When I signed him Stade de Reims was the only other club interested, and now he's instantly valued at almost 30 mill

Here's all our summer business:

That's four key players out the door: Da Costa, Kehrer, Correa and Mbappe. Kehrer is the one I'm most disappointed with as I really wanted to keep him. But he had a 12,75 million release clause and would only negotiate a new contract with an even lower clause, so had to admit defeat. For Da Costa, Correa and Mbappe the offers were simply too good to turn down, especially as I knew replacements were readily available. I initially replaced Correa with Brandt, who had a release clause, and when the offer for Mbappe came in I already had a perfect replacement (actually two, Brandt and Lozano) at the club so it was a no-brainer, especially as it provided the funds to sign Lawson. Fortounis was transfer-listed and was an easy signing to add to the wings. Here's three regens that have been signed for the first team:

Lawson and Taxi I have high hopes for, especially Lawson, who's the CB I mentioned earlier. Mosquera I'm not so sure about, but we'll see. The rest of the first team signings are, I presume, fairly familiar names. Bernard, Schauenberg, Zaccaria, Huber and Gomez are prospects, 17-18 years old, and probably won't feature in the first team apart from easier draws in domestic cups and possible injury crises. Huber will be my future homegrown backup keeper unless my scouts have vastly overrated him, and I'm hoping at least one of the rest will be good enough for the first team in the future. Zaccaria looks to have the makings of a good roaming playmaker and I think he's the most likely one to make it.

[PleasedToMichu]

So more quality signings fella. Taxi looks to have a few goals in him for sure. What's your European group like?

[kozmik]

8 hours ago, PleasedToMichu said:

So more quality signings fella. Taxi looks to have a few goals in him for sure. What's your European group like?

He's actually had a terrific start with three goals in four games. Long may it continue.

Not so surprisingly, we were drawn in one of the toughest groups in the competition, with BMG, Malaga and Dinamo Zagreb. Should have a decent chance of going through though, all of them are beatable.

We made one more signing, 9,75 mill for Jack Grealish from Bournemouth, who were relegated last season. I tried to sign him in July but they wanted like 40 million for him. Then I got a news item "Nottingham Forest's 9,75 bid accepted" so had to go in for him. Sold Bentivegna for 7 mill to make room for Grealish.

After four games we're 6th, W2 D1 L1. Got Arsenal and City next so we'll be tumbling down soon enough...

[kozmik]

Flying colors and all that:

Away to BMG was our only draw. Not doing too shabby in the league either:

[PleasedToMichu]

Quality going! Totally destroyed that Europa group!

I'm scared to play my last 3 games, but really it's my addiction to Prison Architect that is holding it up. Unbelievable, our poor run continued and we ended up going 7 games without a win! 5 defeats and 2 draws. What a time to do it! From game 35-42 we picked up 2 points. And most of the games were 1-2 or 1-0. So frustrating. What a time to go on a mental downward spiral. Even more crazy though was that after that run, we were still only 5 points from the playoff places. Everyone is just beating everyone. We ended the run with a great 0-2 win AT fierce rivals Leeds to secure the double over them and to hopefully take some sort of form into the last few games.

3 games to go, 2 points outside playoffs. Tense!

[kozmik]

23 hours ago, PleasedToMichu said:

Quality going! Totally destroyed that Europa group!

I'm scared to play my last 3 games, but really it's my addiction to Prison Architect that is holding it up. Unbelievable, our poor run continued and we ended up going 7 games without a win! 5 defeats and 2 draws. What a time to do it! From game 35-42 we picked up 2 points. And most of the games were 1-2 or 1-0. So frustrating. What a time to go on a mental downward spiral. Even more crazy though was that after that run, we were still only 5 points from the playoff places. Everyone is just beating everyone. We ended the run with a great 0-2 win AT fierce rivals Leeds to secure the double over them and to hopefully take some sort of form into the last few games.

3 games to go, 2 points outside playoffs. Tense!

More than enough time to turn it around then - hope you can make it!

Those poor runs is one of the most infuriating features in any game I've ever played - it just makes you feel so helpless. Feels like you can't do anything, you just watch your team fluff chance after chance while any oppo team plays like prime Barca. I just had an away game against West Ham which was exactly that - roughly equal amount of shots both overall and on target, but we lost 4-0. Some of their attacking play was stunning and our defenders were nothing more than spectators. It also meant four league games in a row without a win, three defeats and one draw. Longest winless run we've had this season. Thankfully we just beat Burnley at home 2-0, hopefully we've turned a corner now. Top 3 (Manchester teams + Chelsea) are in a league of their own and no one is going to catch them, but the race for fourth is very, very tight:

We should be comfortably fourth but we've dropped too many silly points. I think Arsenal will get the fourth spot - we were around ten points ahead of them, then they sacked Guardiola and have only lost one game since. In Europa we drew probably the toughest possible opponent for the first knockout round - Leverkusen. After an epic tie we went through, 6-5 on aggregate, although we also had the away goal advantage after winning 4-3 at their place. In the next round we'll play familiar opponents BMG, hopefully we can match our earlier results against them. In the FA cup we're in round six next, facing championship leaders Reading away. I wouldn't actually mind going out - I have bad memories of juggling with the league and the business end of Europa and FA cup, the fixture congestion was awful.